Clean
by l'ange de lumiere
Summary: Asami was like heroin: addictive and the ephemeral high was followed by a harrowing low. And Akihito's need for his next fix would never be sated. Part 1 of the King of Pain series.


**A/N:**

 **This is unbeta'd, and will never be. It's very personal to me, and I am sure that many of you can relate. I wrote it to be cathartic, and just as a way to work through some things.**

 **I hope you enjoy it. This is the most personal thing that I have written.**

 *****Clean*****

Akihito wasn't sure how it had happened, how it had ended. It was the same old story: he had chased a dangerous scoop that resulted in Asami tritely showing up to save him. The ensuing fight was almost expected, the words familiar and boring. The heated indignation Akihito argued with had faded months ago and now he fought just because he was expected to. They had not even made it back to the condo yet, having stopped at Asami's office so the fixer could finish up some important paperwork that had to be done and only he could do it.

The rain had pounded on the glass windows, so loudly that Akihito could scarcely hear himself think. And then he realized how tired he was. So tired. Of the fighting, the secrecy, of having to look over his shoulder and judge his every move against Asami's wishes. Suddenly, standing before the fixer, dry and so alone, was the last place Akihito wanted to be.

Asami hadn't even tried to stop him as he left.

The crowded sidewalks of downtown Tokyo offered no protection from the pouring rain, and Akihito had no umbrella to hide under. Thunder rumbled on the edge of the horizon. Some noticed, most people did not care. He was jostled, shoved into people and his heels were constantly tread upon. Akihito did not want to go his usufructuary home, to seek shelter under a warm shower and hide under Asami's Egyptian cotton sheets. He turned down a gross alley that ran green with the putrid garbage that the delicatessens produced.

A small park, the last vestiges of green in the overrun city, lay on the other side. And it was empty. Mommies and Daddies had pulled their children home when the rain had first begun, wanting to protect their little ones. Harbor them from the pneumonia and colds that the rain surely would bring.

This had been coming for months, slowly circulating beneath the surface of their relationship, a monstrous impasse waiting to rear its head. They had hit a drought, the love slowly dwindling and drying up. He had given as much as his soul could offer, and Asami had sucked it up greedily, like a cactus soaking up rain in the desert. Akihito had lost so much of himself in the crime lord, molding himself into the perfect lover for the man. Asami had covered Akihito until he was unrecognizable, and his personality was a suit that he could no longer wear. It was too uncomfortable.

And it was not until he had stood in the man's office that he realized that dust had settled in his soul. Rather than Akihito slipping through the cracks of Asami's cold heart, the fixer had consumed him like a fire. Burnt him to a crisp, leaving a nacreous glaze to his body and dissolving any dissent that Akihito might have had about the relationship. Asami had bedaubed him completely, and for a time he had been content. Not happy, but content.

Akihito stood in the middle of the football field. Tiny holes from pointy cleats collected the pouring rain. The water seeped deep into the earth, and mud rose up around his shoes. The water, the air, outside was so cold. Icy cool. Refreshing his burning skin. It was an instant relief from Asami's inferno. A shadow of his old self shifted deep inside of him, responding the pure rain water. Perhaps his soul lived on still, somewhere in the deep burrows of his body, in the shadows where Asami could not reach.

The well of love that Akihito had had slowly dried up during his three years with Asami. Fiery heat caused all watery love to evaporate, until only a small pool was left. Akihito's heart had once been a cavernous cistern, but now it was shallow, not even enough to cover a wading toddler's feet. There was not even enough left for the photographer himself. He loathed the plaything he had become, not a man but a puppet on strings, doing as Asami bid.

His hands began to shake. Leaving Asami was like quitting heroin. Not that Twilight shit, but the liquid drug that caused an ephemeral euphoria, a wonderful and phantasmagorical departure from reality. He wanted to keep his hands deep in his pockets, to control the shaking and pretend that he was fine. That this did not hurt him.

But it did. So much more than Akihito had expected. He knew that there would be regrets, that his mind would stumble over 'what-ifs' and he would always wonder if he could have toughed it out. If he could have found a way to keep loving Asami Ryuichi, even if it meant sacrificing all of himself. He had known that all those thoughts would bombard the moment he stepped out of Sion. He had not expected the stabbing pains that tore at his gut, the way it hurt to breathe and how his heart struggled to push sluggish blood through his body. It felt like he was dying.

Asami would always be inculcated on him, like a drug. Flashbacks would come: in dreams, in thoughts, in the recesses of his mind where he could not control his subconscious. He would never fully be able to rid himself of the man. Asami had made sure to imprint himself on Akihito: mind, body, and soul. There would be others, but no one would be quite the same. No one could wreck him and the stitch him back together like Asami Ryuichi could.

Akihito dropped to his knees. Head cradled in his heads, he did not even feel the freezing mud seep into his jeans. His entire body shook, not from the rain but from the irrepressible emotion that surged through him. He had done it. He had left the crime lord, his home, and all of his things. All of it was part of a dark, consuming past that threatened to swallow him whole.

He was drowning. From the rain or the terror or the joy, he was not sure. As water filled up his lungs, a strong current swept around him. The water's touch was probing but soft. It sensed the layer that Asami had covered him with, and using steady strokes, slowly began to wash off the crime lord. It was cleansing, scouring and so necessary that Akihito could not describe it, but it did not stop his harrowing scream. It echoed in the empty park, and no one in Japan heard it.

Akihito had never experienced such pain as he shouted up at the sky, as his body was flayed and quartered. He knew then if he could survive the night, he could survive a life free of Asami.

Surviving until dawn's spindly fingers pulled away the curtain of darkness seemed impossible.

There had been war that raged inside him, over him and as Akihito scream echoed, it ended. He had won, had conquered Asami's nefarious grasp. He had escaped to one place where the man could not reach, and was about to reclaim himself. He was his own master, and only him. Hands clawing into the water-clogged sod, the photographer gritted his teeth and allowed himself to drown. The rain swelled around him, and as he threw his head back with a mighty roar, it was as if he had come up from the bottom of the ocean. He was able to breathe for the first time in three years.

The rain was patient as it peeled away the varnish left by Asami's scorching hands, exposing raw flesh. Akihito's intrepid independence still flickered somewhere inside of him, and the rain indefatigably searched for it. It was not Asami Ryuichi's cloying caress, but it could help the boy heal.

Akihito took a deep, stilling breath as his hands unclenched. Wet grass, emerald green, was plastered between his fingers, forming rings that Asami could never give him. Promises that were meant for someone else. Hands now holding his bony knees, the photographer pushed himself up, so that he kneeled reverently in the grass under the black sky of a perfect storm. His lungs drank up the night air, his rib cage expanding was as infinite as the cosmos. He was breathing fresh air. Alive. Free.

Tilting his head up, Akihito let the cold rain run down his pointed cheeks. The iridescent droplets mixed in with his tears, and it was as if the world cried with him. He let it all go. Asami. Feilong. Luxury. Security and adventure. Big beds and even larger hands. Volatile kisses, ardent couplings, and bliss as sweat soaked bodies pressed together, basking in an orgiastic afterglow. Heated fights, words sharper than an knife and the way the air left his body when Asami slammed him against the walls. Tender 'I-love-you's, and 'Sorry's. All of it was gone, but he had a prize that the rest of the world wanted. He had his soul again, and the realization unfurled like a proud banner in chest.

Body aquiver, Akihito closed his eyes and listened to the mellifluous rain. It cleansed him, pulling him through agonizing detoxification. When the morning came, he would be clean. Syzygy had most certainly caused his limerence, dalliance, or love with Asami, but that epoch of his life had reached its denouement. As he kneeled under the astral abyss above, he surrendered the obsession. When dawn came, the aurora would shine through that dark part of him, too, obliterating it.

Soon, Asami Ryuichi would be nothing but a memory. And though Akihito might miss it, he would never go back to the man. He would not risk himself for another ever again.

 *****Clean*****

 **A/N:**

 **The next chapter of Hyacinthus Bloomed is with the wonderful Miyanaoi. I'm halfway through the next chapter of Hurt. And I really need to get on Am I Pretty. I know that I've been slacking with that one haha. Oops.**

 **Have a great week everyone!**


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